Hair Transplants in Crown area

[pensfan]

I went for a to a hair restoration expert for a consultation to discuss my options. Basically said my hair loss wasn't sever enough & put me on fin ect...

One thing he did say though was that he didn't like doing HT's for the crown. He said that since most interaction is done face to face & the fact that the crown eats a lot of hair he doesn't like doing a lot of crown work.

I have thinning on my crown but my hair line is fine. It's maybe thinning a little if you look hard in good lighting but it's almost nothing at all. Though I feel like it might have been thicker before I start Fin which is weird.

I feel like the crown going bald is worse than the receding. It looks weird when you see some one with decent to good front coverage & then a hole back there. You can hide the receding with a hair cut but not the crown. So I have a couple of questions hoping people could help me out with.

Is this common that DR's shy away from crown work? Would it be more practical to use different donor spots than my head like body hair or facial hair since it's in the back?

Any opinions or answers are greatly appreciated!

[greatjob!]

Yes it is common for doctors to be hesitant to transplant the crown. Often they refer to the crown as "the black hole" for grafts. The reason for this is the circular orientation of the crown makes it harder to achieve the look of density as opposed to the rest of the scalp, so it takes many more grafts in the crown to achieve the same look of coverage you could get in other areas with less. All of this coupled with the fact that donor supply if finite a good doctor isn't going to want to put you in a position where you use the majority of your donor in the crown, have your hairline disappear which will leave you in a position where you don't have the grafts necessary to restore the more cosmetically important hairline.

How old are you? This might also play into the doctors reluctance to transplant the crown. If you are fairly young the extent of your future loss may not be evident which could end up in the scenario I described above.

To address your other question, yes there are many doctors that use body and beard hair often times in the crown.

Since you say your loss is not very severe I would recommend staying on fin for a long time, at least a year, and reevaluate. If you have caught your loss early and since it is in the crown you have the greatest chance for regrowth. You may be surprised and actually greatly improve your situation. I would also add minox to improve the chance of regrowth.

[pensfan]

Yes it is common for doctors to be hesitant to transplant the crown. Often they refer to the crown as "the black hole" for grafts. The reason for this is the circular orientation of the crown makes it harder to achieve the look of density as opposed to the rest of the scalp, so it takes many more grafts in the crown to achieve the same look of coverage you could get in other areas with less. All of this coupled with the fact that donor supply if finite a good doctor isn't going to want to put you in a position where you use the majority of your donor in the crown, have your hairline disappear which will leave you in a position where you don't have the grafts necessary to restore the more cosmetically important hairline.

How old are you? This might also play into the doctors reluctance to transplant the crown. If you are fairly young the extent of your future loss may not be evident which could end up in the scenario I described above.

To address your other question, yes there are many doctors that use body and beard hair often times in the crown.

Since you say your loss is not very severe I would recommend staying on fin for a long time, at least a year, and reevaluate. If you have caught your loss early and since it is in the crown you have the greatest chance for regrowth. You may be surprised and actually greatly improve your situation. I would also add minox to improve the chance of regrowth.

I'm 28. I've been doing the Fin & Rogain for about 6 almost 7 months. Very little if any regrowth but since it's mild it's easily covered with a concealer. Still it sucks & if it get's worse I just think it will look very awkward.

If it does get worse & the Fin doesn't work I'm seriously considering finding a DR. who would be willing to use some other donor spots to help fill it in while protecting some on my head in case the hairline does go.

Does anyone else feel the same way about the crown? I mean I see guys who have nice hairlines then just the spot on the back & it looks bad. I feel receding, depending on the case, looks more natural.

I'm really hoping that the Fin/Mix can hold it off to my mid 30's & go from there but luck obviously is not on too many of our sides if we're posting here to begin with.